Net offers hope to Europe film-makers

Page Tools

The internet offers new hope for European cinema, still
dominated by Hollywood, to boost its international distribution,
European culture ministers and film industry executives say.

The chance for filmmakers to target new audiences and niche
markets is huge on the web, they said at the Cannes film festival
on Tuesday.

"The advent of film online offers immense opportunities for the
film industry both with regard to access to new audiences and with
regard to wider circulation of European films, including on
international markets," they said in a statement.

"Audiences are often currently deprived of access to certain
films - either for geographical reasons or because more artistic or
experimental films have difficulty in being screened widely."

The statement predicted a win-win situation for internet access
providers as well based on greater demand for broadband services
capable of carrying films with high-quality, high-speed
transmission.

But piracy poses a growing hazard and a European Leadership
Summit on online film had been formed to examine the problem, the
ministers and film executives said after a meeting.

"There are indeed risks of a disastrous loss in revenue if the
market is inundated with unauthorised file sharing of films, as has
been seen with music," they said, adding that the campaign against
illegal file sharing would include a public education drive.

Despite the new opportunities offered by the internet, there was
no expectation that the curtain will fall on the traditional
popcorn-and-silver-screen experience of the cinema, their statement
said.

"The collective experience of seeing a film in a cinema will
remain a privileged medium," they wrote, noting that television,
videos and DVDs had only stoked audiences' interest in films.

European filmmakers have long complained they are squeezed out
of cinemas at home and poorly promoted abroad in the face of the
Hollywood marketing juggernaut.

In France, for example, the film industry is especially vibrant
because of state subsidies, but even there, 40 per cent of box
office tickets sold are for homegrown films with most of the rest
going to US mainstream productions.

Tuesday's meeting brought together the European Union's
commissioner for media, Viviane Reding, with film industry leaders
and EU cultural affairs ministers.